Bad wedding advice...

Just wanted to say I knew advice was bad, having been a knottie through my wedding planning. But I recently ran into someone who, a few years ago, when theknot.com gave personalized answers to wedding problems, was hired, as a 22 year old, never married, no experience at all dealing with weddings, to answer the questions. Yes, she would basically repeat over and over to brides, "it's your day, do what you want."

AH!

You deserve better treatment. And that answer rarely actually helps people and more often hurts them because it reinforces a very wrong notion - a notion that you are able to invite about 175 of your closet friends and family, have the day exclusively about you, but then hope they enjoy themselves and are happy for you.... which means THEY have to be happy which means YOU have to think about THEM. :-) I was listening to a wedding podcast cracking up at the wedding coordinators going on and on with their pet peeves being in the industry. They are at the whim of "your day, your way" even if they know your idea is awful, disgusting (chocolate fountains where sick guests double dip), or is not very hospitable to guests (not feeding or hydrating them properly.)

So as our name goes, getting to The First Dance takes a lot of juggling of values, people, relationships, wallets, and details!

The myth of cohabitation: living together before marriage

I just heard on a radio show something you hear often, from everyone... from parents of adult kids, from friends, coworkers, movies, TV. It's so common you'd never know it's dead wrong! It is an argument that "just makes sense." It's so grounded in reality you would actually question NOT doing it... I heard it a lot when I was engaged and made a certain choice about not moving in with my fiance.

One crucial note about this blog: I'm mostly talking to the NON-ENGAGED couples.. those who haven't yet committed and had the serious conversations about finalizing their decision on spending the rest of their lvies together by becoming engaged.

Living together before marriage. Specifically while dating someone, moving in together with one main purpose of "testing" your relationship. The logic goes that it is important to make sure you are compatible before you commit the rest of your life with this person. After all, what if they snore, or are messy and you're a neat freak? And really, how can you really know someone unless you are living with them?

Now, if you're wondering where I'm going with this blog, I want to give a shout out to the liberal, non-religious people by saying I do not take a religious stance or a more "conservative" view of this topic. But I come to the same conclusions, just for very different reasons. It's too bad the only voice against living together is strickly the religious voice. Most young people don't go to church and it's actually the non-churched who are as likely, or more likely, to think it's a good idea and have social support.

I could bore you with the research. The following up of couples who lived together and what their future marriages holds is a grim reality. Those couples fare much worse than their counterparts who do not live together. But not just divorce is grim, even those who stayed married their happiness about their marriages is lower than their counterparts!!

WHAT GIVES, then? How on earth can you commit the rest of your life with someone who you have never lived with, hip to hip, day in, day out, sweaty armpits and all?

Obviously we are all special and unique. Or so the logic goes, right? YOU of course are marrying the love of your life. YOU are never getting divorced. YOU don't fit "statistics". YOU are an outlier in a scattogram of research data pointing towards clear trends of divorce and unhappiness.

And let's not even go into the harassment, the eye rolls, the "you are just SO STUPID and NAIVE" looks you get from friends, coworkers and others when you announce you are not shacking up. It takes strength, courage, and a lot of patience to deal with all that community baggage.

Here is my take on marriage and why this "living together before marriage is smart" stuff is totally bogus.

One, marriage is about having similar values and views of your future. You can fall in love with someone completely opposite from you in almost EVERY WAY, but if you have similar values and goals for your future, you should fare well. After all, the real stresses of life aren't about being a neat freak, cleaning up the beard shavings, or who does the laundry. The real stresses are about how you earn money, how you spend money, whether and when you want children, how you raise them, how much you save for retirement, how you relate to your families, how well you balance your sex life and parenthood roles with some level of independence and self-growth.

Two, marriage is about being committed. Through it all, you are committed to the marriage. Commitment is not something you 'test'. It is a choice you hold and then a choice you let go of because there is no alternative except perhaps in horrendous situations - your spouse murders someone, is violent, abusive, etc. But if you are in a committed relationship you will survive because while the rest of your world (physical or emotional world) falls apart, the one rock in your life is your commitment. It is the one constant, the one unwavering, unchanging element in a crazy, unpredictable world. Commitment doesn't care if you experience tremendous growth in your life while your partner is the same old person, change careers (for more or less money), gain or lose a lot of weight, develop a dibilitating illness, disability, or emotional problem.

Values, trust, admiration, respect, commitment. These are not things you build just living with someone. If that were the case we'd want to marry our roommates in college or when we enter the real world. You can hold those things dear for a best friend you have never lived, right? The difference is you aren't marrying your best friend. You are marrying someone you want to commit your entire life to. You work around the quirks of daily life because you are holding onto something much stronger and deeper than the petty annoyances that invariably happen when two people live under the same roof.

On a bit lighter note, if you have the confidence in your dating relationship, there is no need to "hurry it along" by living together. You are more likely to have those intense conversations while dating than while being hip-to-hip, falling asleep to the television. Why? Because you stop dating! And dating is where we get out of our daily routine and truly spend time, alone, having those conversations we don't have at breakfast about our values and deep seated notions of our future.

So hats off to those who chose to have fun dating and when the time is right, the wedding date is set, and commitments are made, still consider waiting til the wedding. Have fun spreading out, alone in your bed. Have fun doing anything you want in your own space. Enjoy the alone time. For when you get married, those times will quickly pass.

_____________________________________

For full disclosure my husband and I were engaged for 15 months. 5 months before the wedding my husbands apartment lease was up and we needed to get a house before the weather got cold. We couldn't afford my apartment rent and a house so we planned for me to move in with my parents (after 9 years living away) until the wedding. We both got a ton of crap for what others perceived as a foolish, naive, dumb choice. We bought a house and everything changed. Those who own property know how much that shifts your world. I had no idea and there was no way I could co-own a home and stay at my parents. So for 5 months we lived together, after being engaged for 10 months, dating for a year prior to that. And I still hold firm - living apart as long as you can before the wedding is something you'll never regret and if you're purposeful about it, will build your strength and character to withstand more social pressures coming your way post-wedding.

Fighting, communication and assessment of your couplehood

I got an interesting comment from my last post. In case there is any doubt, my husband and I are "good" fighters - never raise our voice, very sincere, listen well to the other side, and generally are "good communicators" as demonstrated by The First Dance Couple Checkup, an online, inexpensive, research-based premarital inventory on our website. The point is that with all those skills you will STILL disagree, still have "fights" as a couple, and the question is how you handle the problem. In todays society it is easy to feel if you can keep at it, eventually you'll convince the other person they're wrong. Or worse, you start to reassess whether you married the right person because they aren't Mr. or Mrs. Perfect, afterall. It's called a consumer marriage and it's a disasterous mindset to have if you take it to an extreme.

If there is one thing I've learned over the years, "right and wrong" aren't words that should be used in a marriage (excluding obvious cases of physical or emotional violence.) The reality is would you rather be "right" or happy? For most couples who have been together a long time, being happy is better than being "right". Of course this all depends on the area you are disagreeing about. Generally those problems I talked about that are perpetual - you always procrastinate, you married a pack rat, your job makes you put in long hours but you love your career and don't want to leave... all those stressors will always be there and sometimes it's better to avoid the unending fights, or to at least TRY to see the other persons side. Your spouse doesn't want to be a pack rat but finds it extremely challenging to throw things away, or you were born late and have never been on time for anything in the 30 years you've been alive... you don't like it about yourself, but having a spouse yelling at you for it won't make it better!

It is often said money, sex, and children are the three biggest areas of struggle for couples. I have seen so many couples who are so mismatched in their values about money that I urge anyone reading this who is like that, to get a financial planner - someone who is "Free" and can help set the groundwork for your financial future. Or if that isn't likely, I was extremely impressed with the small part of a money game I played called Money Habitudes at a marriage conference. This is an easy card game but it is really surprisingly cool in helping you see how you view money without taking some boring quiz or having to think "too hard." I want to get this sold through my website or somehow help couples more on this vital topic.

The reality is there is no "one" right way to handle money. My husband and I both worked high paying corporate jobs, went out to eat almost every night, traveled and had a great time! We could not have predicted we would make major career changes (stay at home life then small business life and he's going into low paying counseling.) The reality is we're savers and have no debt even with 2 years of him making no money. We bought a small house that we love to give us more flexibility, we own smaller cars, we don't buy a lot of new clothes, etc. We could have never gone out to eat, never traveled and had a LOT more money saved up... but for us we couldn't imagine ruining our fun times, the memories we have, just so we had a bigger bank account. It is the delicate line between having fun and saving, between living for today and living for tomorrow. And every person and therefor every couple is going to have their own UNIQUE balance.... my hope is that you have balance as a couple in however that translates for you.

And an obvious first place to start is WEDDING PLANNING! Do you hold the view that this is the one day worth splurging on? Or the wedding is "only a day" and isn't worth going into debt for? Or the wedding is a massive family reunion and worth the time and money to bring everyone in your life together, even if it's expensive, because there will never be an opportunity to do it again? Or is a wedding a sacred family event and you don't feel a need to invite a lot of extra guests so you CAN have an elegant wedding and still not spend a lot?

What if your parents are paying? Does this have an impact on how you plan, how you spend, and where you place your values? My wedding was paid by my parents and was lower than the average for our state. My husband and I couldn't imagine doing more even though my parents "could have afforded more." We struck a balance between having nice wedding invitations, really nice music, a really good photographer and medicore food, the wedding cake tasted OK but looked pathetic (oh well...) and the table decorations weren't what we wanted but we gave free reign to others and again, oh well. We got OUR wish which was a certain "feel" to the reception... the artwork in the church basement, the lighting, the live jazz band, the great host job of my dad to bring all our guests into the reception with some unique moments (like getting the wisdom from married couples that they have learned but did not know on their wedding day.)

Fighting sucks...

My husband and I just had a big fight the other day. We're not yellers and we're respectful of each other when we fight, but it still sucks. I find fighting often leads to the shocking realization that the other person has very complex emotions and views of things, just like you do. It is easy to take people at face value and not realize there is a LOT that goes unsaid - especially men who may want to be conflict avoiders or feel like it's better to be quiet then get attacked by their fiancee's or wives.

My husband and I don't fit a lot of the gender stereotypes and yet we find we get in some stereotypical fights! It's frustrating to realize that "roles" we play have an impact on our perspective about things, our experiences and how views.

If you weren't aware, John Gottman did some research and has really categorized two types of fighting that all couples go through. One kind CAN be ended... either with the right skills, or the scenario around the fight never happens again, or through therapy. The other kind of fighting is perpetual. There is NO answer, no end result, no way to "end" the fight. These are often where personalities clash - you're always early, your fiance(e) is always late... or you're a neat freak and you're marrying a total pack rat. Since we can't easily change our personalities there is going to be lifelong friction. But the fascinating thing is those fights do not have to mean you are not meant to be together. It's actually a question of HOW you go about fighting that bodes well or poorly for your marital happiness and longevity.

This last fight was about parenting (we have two small children.) Nothing got resolved, but we are able to sit on what was said, recognizing there are some inherent limitations we each hold and there is probably no real solution. So we'll do the marriage dance - give and take a little more now that some dirty laundry was aired, we'll try to be more patient with the other, try to change our own behaviors slightly, and ride the wave of what is possible.

Speaking of my husband, I'm going to try to get him involved in The First Dance more. He's very skitish about being involved in a "family business" but he has so much to say and has taught me SO MUCH about the male perspective! We shall see... :-)

What is premarital counseling?

There are so many questions around premarital counseling we get on our wedding relationship website. I think it's great!

Questions like:

• What do you do in premarital counseling?
• How much does premarital counseling cost?
• What is involved in a premarital counseling session?
• Who does premarital counseling - religious or non religous people?

While I am just like you - a normal person who got married and wondered the same things, here is what I've been learning.

Premarital counseling is done by 44% of all engaged couples. Catholics require it so that is about 37% of all engaged couples. The rest are couples who are strongly encouraged by their church, officiant, or friends to get premarital counseling, or couples like my husband and me who felt it was something we should do. A good portion are also into their second marriages and see the value of not ignoring their relationship strengths and weaknesses.

I think of premarital counseling like getting a car or a house - you'd do some preparation and research before jumping in to an important decision. Premarital counseling can give you the preparation and research on WHAT IT TAKES TO HAVE A GOOD MARRIAGE! It is honestly not very personal, often, because it's done in group formats, or it's more about educating you on what we know about relationships.

Many of us cringe at the idea of taking a marriage compatibility test. What if we "fail?" We already feel we know what we need to work on and just don't want to address it again if we don't have to! But I can tell you, having a third party premarital inventory, or marriage counselor, draw out some areas of growth opportunity can be a good thing. It can basically put on the table things you already know and instead of those things sitting in your head, they are released. Those things can then be talked about separate from your own ego or self esteem. They can be talked about as, "hey, everyone has stuff! This is your stuff and this is how others with the same stuff have worked through it."

Premarital counseling can then be a wide variety of options because it's under the umbrella of marriage education. Lay leaders, groups, individual mentoring, therapy. Our website offers many options and frankly our book, Take Back Your Wedding: Managing the People Stress of Wedding Planning is absolutely the most powerful premarital, and marital work I've experienced in my own four years of marriage. It talks about the wedding in a way that gets you thinking about your relationship.

So because it varies the costs vary wildly. The more individual the more expensive. Sometimes marriage counselors have a set agenda on what they cover with engaged couples and sometimes they don't. Some couples find it's not so much premarital counseling as actual couples counseling they need. Some couples have real issues that go beyond basic skill building and require therapy. This is a wonderful time, while engaged, to start working on building your relationship as you plan for your wedding. Couples can find they get much closer, emotionally, to their partners through therapy and why not do the work before the big wedding ceremony!

I will continue to talk about premarital counseling and all that is involved. But for now I need a nap!

Happy wedding planning,

Elizabeth